Yoga Bhoga

Yoga Bhoga is summed up in three words, pleasure, enjoyment and experience.

Taken from my Sanskrit dictionary:-

1. Enjoyment of the objects of the world through the senses. Worldly experience.
2. Enjoyment or unending bliss in the state of liberation, according to Dvaita Vedanta.

It may help us with the understanding of Yoga Bhoga if we reflect on the meaning of three words, Pleasure, Pain and Enjoyment. The word pleasure indicates that we are passive to a stimulus that we receive at our leisure. Pain is a unassimable level of stimulus that is unacceptable. Animals are particularly responsive to pleasurable and painful stimulus. Humans, in spite of threat or immediate danger, are more likely to go into a painful situation, if a loved one is threatened, or for the greater good. Experience tells us that pleasure is of limited duration as constant stimulation is no stimulation and in excess can become painful.

The word enjoyment (Joy) implies a degree of Self control as it is the affirmation and assimilation of a situation to which we have directed our attention. Meditation on the breath can lead to the experience of joyful unimpeded motion, by first stilling the mind and letting go every tension that distracts from observation of the breath, until there is the experience of being breathed rather than breathing. This experience is closely akin to the rise and fall of the joyful ananda or life force that undulates throughout time and space.

The opposite of liberation is lack of freedom and this does not necessarily mean imprisonment, it can also mean excessive regulation that restricts freedom of choice. It also has a psychological component as when identifying with restrictive or painful situations; we fall under the law governing those things.

The aim of yoga is to achieve Self Governance and Self recognition, as the Self is the immanent spirit in the centre of every being, which is essentially positive, it is the only absolutely real, and it has no negativity in it whatever and is essentially joyful.

To the yogi, freedom of action does not mean irresponsible action, but intuitive action guided by a source that transcends the limitations of the lower mind. An important Taoist concept is that of Wu Wei, of effortless action and knowing when to act and not to act. Wu Wei can be described as going with the flow, as can be experienced when practising T’ai Chi or when letting the breath rise and fall in harmony with life giving ananda.

Patanjali describes yoga as stilling the activities of the mind, which is not a recommendation to look mindlessly into space, rather to practice Self Awareness, free of the distractions of the lower mind and then to go with the flow, ‘letting’ go of all impedances to harmonious inter-function, guided by the light of truth within the heart. It is at this level of affirmation, that the life of the Yoga becomes a joy and each action affirms and awakens within the soul its eternal body of light and truth.

Against the background of the modern world it is difficult to maintain freedom from distractions and not unlike the seafarer practising close water navigation, there are tides of emotion to deal with and hidden rocks to catch the unwary. We have to be ever watchful and each time we forget our life course, bring ourselves back to freedom that lies within by practising continual Self remembrance.